It is apposite that in the same month as we attended Money20/20 Europe in Copenhagen, news emerges from Denmark that re-enforces the view of Nordic countries being eager adopters of technological innovations. Nets, the payments provider in the Nordic region, has partnered with Japanese payments scheme, on bringing mobile payments to the Danish nation debit card, Dankort.

The Danes have already proved themselves to be early adopters of mobile payments in the P2P space, of course, with 2013-launched service MobilePay from Danske Bank now downloaded by more than 2.9m Danish people to send money to friends and family as well as businesses.

“We are very pleased with this long-term partnership with JCB that will help retain Dankort as the most cost-effective and convenient means of payment for Danish merchants and consumers.”, says Jeppe Juul-Andersen, Senior Vice President in Nets with the responsibility for Dankort.

Nets believes that in 2020 up to 50% of all payments at POS in Denmark may originate from a smartphone and that there will be more than 3 million Dankort on mobile phones.

“With this new partnership, Dankort will be powered by strong technology from JCB. The first step in the partnership will be to base Dankort on the mobile phone on JCB’s technology but there is also a solid base for further developments. A second phase will include international interoperability using JCB’s global network. ” adds Jeppe Juul-Andersen.

The Nordic company says the payment experience on mobile will be the same as using a contactless card, although a picky Londoner who used Apple Pay may point out that using mobile payments takes – or at the very least feels -longer than card.

The user can just tap-and-go with mobile when buying anything under DKK 200 (just over £20). Any amount over that will require the user to enter a passcode.

At the moment, 60% of all Dankort transactions are carried out using a contactless-enabled terminal and over the coming years Nets expects that most of the terminals in Denmark will be able to accept contactless payments and the provider says the current terminal models will work with the new mobile payments, with only “small adjustments” needed.

I caught up with Guillaume Andre, Head of Marketing, Ingenico Northern Europe, to discuss the implications of a tech giant-payments provider collaboration-led future, and how Ingenico and Google might continue to innovate the POS system in the future.

The future is even closer than we think. The increasing pace of technological change means concepts formerly considered only abstract theories on a distant horizon are already nearly upon us. By Urs Gubser, Head E-Commerce, SIX Payment Services.